Tattoo artists report a surge in demand for designs that celebrate New Orleans: fleur-de-lis patterns, "NOLA," after the city's widely known abbreviation, and even a symbol modeled after the weather-map depiction of hurricanes.

Between returning residents, construction workers pouring into the battered city and the National Guard troops preparing to pack up and head home, demand has been brisk.

It is interesting that tattoos have become mainstream enough for just about anyone who lives through a significant event (9-11, Katrina, etc.) will at some point think to themselves "I should get a tattoo to commemorate this." Heck, there are firefighters that have never set foot in New York who have gotten FDNY memorial/tribute ink just because of the "brotherhood" in the job.